Voice of Experience: Elizabeth Philipp, Head of PIMCO New York

pimco_liz_philipp1by Pamela Weinsaft (New York City)

Elizabeth Philipp, Head of PIMCO‘s New York office, has always loved numbers. “I know that sounds just so trite and generic,” she said, “but I loved math in high school. I excelled at it. I always liked the organization of numbers.”

That said, she went off to college at the University of Iowa with the intention of becoming either a pediatrician or a physical therapist. After taking a finance course in her second year at university, however, she quickly migrated back to math, and ultimately finance. “When I took my first finance course I just felt it was natural. I also felt that there was something about it that created a lot of independence. I just always felt that I could be very much in charge of my career destination if I chose finance and business. It is also very entrepreneurial.”

She added, “I didn’t know exactly what area of finance I would go into but I liked that there were many different avenues to pursue. That was the key. Whether it was running a company or doing more of the controller function or sales and trading, I thought it would be fascinating and evolutionary.”

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Voice of Experience: Marlene Mitchell Gordon, Vice President and Assistant General Counsel, Burger King Corporation

Marlene_Gordon___Burger_King_1_.jpgby Pamela Weinsaft (New York City)

Like many successful women, Marlene Mitchell Gordon, Vice President and Assistant General Counsel of Burger King Corporation has, struggled to find a proper work-life fit. “A few years ago, I was a total workaholic, and never made any time for myself. I began to feel the negative physical effects, which made me take a step back and make some changes in my lifestyle. I realized that life is not all about work.”

“I wish I had understood early on the importance of balancing your personal life and your career,” she added, “I always thought marriage and family would come later in life, but I got married right out of college and had my first child when I was in law school.” She credits a friend and mentor from law school for with helping open her eyes to the difficulties that lay ahead. “[My friend, a pioneer in her field] took me under her wing and helped me understand what life is like as a lawyer in a big firm. When I was pregnant and had an ‘I can do it all’ attitude, she told me that I didn’t understand what motherhood was yet and helped put it into perspective for me.”

She recognizes that this sort of challenge is women face regardless of industry or profession. “I believe that one of the barriers for women in the workplace is that we are the primary caretakers, but yet we still strive to progress our careers. It’s an obstacle and a challenge we need to overcome.”

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Voice of Experience: Lilly Chung, Partner, Deloitte LLC

Lilly_Chung_color1_1_.jpgby Pamela Weinsaft (New York City)

Lilly Chung, a Partner in Deloitte LLC’s San Jose office, loves a challenge. When she and her family emigrated from Taiwan to the United States when she was in her early teens, she barely spoke English. Yet, as the oldest of three girls in her family, she became the de facto representative of her family. “We came here when I was 14 and I had to be the spokesperson for the family. (My parents didn’t really speak English that well. They never really became part of society, never had a formal English education.) I did the family tax returns and all other documentation [among other things]. I also always worked while I studied; even in high school I had a job to support the family. It taught me not only to really appreciate what I have today but also that even when you have a hard life you can still be happy, feel very loved and have a lot of hope for the future.”

Shy and unsure of herself and her place in US society during her high school years, she focused her attention on excelling at school, which efforts resulted full scholarships to USC/UCLA for her in electrical engineering. “From a personal perspective, I was very shy and lacked confidence [in high school] because I lacked a social network that comes when you grow up together with classmates in the US – I never fit in. But that’s why the way for me to excel was to study very hard and be a good student.” Read more

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Voice of Experience: Karen Leetzow, Deputy General Counsel and Vice President, NASCAR

Leetzow__Karen_2009_NASCAR_1_.JPGBy Caroline Shannon (Dayton, Ohio)

When it comes to hocus pocus potions for success, NASCAR Deputy General Counsel and Vice President Karen Leetzow says it wasn’t a magic wand that led her to success. Instead, she claims the male-dominated sport has taught her to listen — that is, if you can hear above the roar of the firing engines.

“If you listen – you learn,” Leetzow said. “If you learn, then you know your stuff. And if you know your stuff, and work hard, then you will get the respect, assignments and the success you deserve — whether you are a man or woman.”

But it’s her role as a woman that has added the diversity Leetzow likes to see in her workplace. She’s proud of the fact that world-popular organization has taken on the idea that “women can do what men do in every area of the business.” Take a look at the company today, and one will see women not only in corporate positions, sales and marketing, but also hitting the track officials, engineers and team owners.

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Voice of Experience: Jacqueline Akerblom, National Managing Partner for Women’s Initiatives, Grant Thornton LLP

Akerblom__Jacqueline_1_1_.jpgby Pamela Weinsaft (New York City)

“In my opinion, the number one barrier to success for women in public accounting is the lack of visible role models. If a woman does not see other women succeeding, it is very difficult to aspire to partnership and senior leadership within a male dominated firm,” said Jacqueline Akerblom, National Managing Partner for Women’s Initiatives and Programs, Audit Partner and International Business Center Director at Grant Thornton LLP.

Akerblom started her career 25 years ago at the Los Angeles office of one of the Big 8 accounting firms. She was recruited to Grant Thornton while working as a manager for that competitor, and quickly moved up the ranks, progressing first to senior manager, then partner. As a new partner, she was asked to go to London to head up Grant Thornton’s US transaction group for Europe, where she stayed for four years.

Upon her return to the US in 1999, she was tapped to head up transaction advisory services for the West Coast. She soon became the national managing partner for international client services and was appointed to the Board of Governors for Grant Thornton International in 2000.

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Voice of Experience: Grace Leiblein, President and Managing Director, GM de Mexico

Grace_photo_1[1]_1.JPGby Pamela Weinsaft (New York City)

Grace Leiblein has been working for GM since she was 18 years old. While attending college at General Motors Institute (now called Kettering University), she worked with GM as a co-op student in a manufacturing plant. She worked her way up through assignments and ranks, with her last position before her recent promotion being the global chief engineer responsible for overseeing the engineering of all several hundred engineers (internal and supplier engineers) working on crossover vehicles like the Acadia and Chevy Traverse.

Says Leiblein, “I remember when I got that assignment. It was a huge challenge—much larger than I had ever experienced—but it was a lot of fun and I learned a lot. I grew a tremendous amount both personally and professionally. To be on a project like that and able to start from scratch basically and have your fingerprints all over some products – I’m very proud of the way they turned out, and when I see one of my vehicles on the road I feel personally responsible for them.”

She was appointed President of GM de Mexico at the end of 2008. Although Leiblein has a personal connection with Latin America—her father is Cuban and her mother is Nicaraguan—she has never worked in Latin America in her professional career and is thrilled about the new opportunity. “I’ve always loved Mexico…it is one of my favorite places to be. And it is a great opportunity to lead an entire business unit for a country. To have that kind of responsibility and authority and challenge is wonderful. And the team there is a proven, experienced team of professionals—nationals as well as expats from different countries—so it will be fun to learn from them as well.”

Leiblein advises women not to be afraid to take that stretch assignment, something she has done quite often over the course of her career. “Women in particular have a tendency to shy away from opportunities out of their comfort zone, whether that be moving into an area that they haven’t worked in before or moving to a different city or moving to a different country. If you really want to progress in an organization you have to take on those opportunities because that is (1) how you grow personally and professionally and (2) it is how leadership really looks at your adaptability for progression (watching how you do in situations where what you are doing is different from what you know).”

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Voice of Experience: Andrea Jung, Chairman and CEO, Avon Products Inc.

andrea_jung.jpg“I’m a firm believer that when you have this job you have the privilege and responsibility of influence – influence to every constituent, to your associates, to your community, influence to your consumer. And that influence can be translated into passion in the work. It gets you through all the tough parts of the job – the extraordinary ability to change women’s lives through the work,” said Andrea Jung, Chairman and CEO of Avon Products Inc. during her luncheon keynote dialogue with Ilene Lang, President of Catalyst at the recent Catalyst Awards Conference on March 30th.

When asked of how she felt about the purported dwindling number of young women going for MBAs because the perceived lack of social utility in business, Jung responded, “It’s killing me that the CEO role is being perceived as it is at this moment. [The job has] got huge responsibility and privilege but these are critically important jobs for the continued growth of America and the world. So I’m proud to be a CEO. I’m proud–I think we can make a difference. It’s not just my company but all of our companies can make a difference in the community and in this country which needs it.”

And if anyone can do it, Andrea Jung at the helm of Avon can. CEO of AVON since 1999 and Chairman since 2001, Jung holds the title as the longest-tenured CEO of the 15 women currently serving as CEOs in the Fortune 500, an interesting point in light of the fact that it is never a position she went into business with the intention to reach. “I never…set out to be CEO. I think you have to want to be in a role where you can make a difference. For me I realized…that I wanted to be a leader and make a difference in the future of the company and that really was the important thing for me.”

It was that perspective that allowed her to stay on at Avon when she was first passed over for the CEO role in 1997. With all the media hype around it–a New York Times article called extra attention to it as yet another example of a woman being passed over for promotion to C-suite–Jung began to get offers from many outside companies to become CEO. She was torn as to whether to stay with Avon and possibly never become a CEO or to leave to take advantage of the various advancement opportunities.

“Ann Moore, CEO of Time and my mentor for many years…said something that changed my life. She said, ‘Follow your compass, not your clock. Make this decision from your heart, not your head.’…And I made a decision… I felt that it was a tough moment for the company and that the company needed me…It really was a moment [where I thought] I can add value in the role as [number 2]. And I decided in that moment even if it meant [never] being CEO that I would do that because I love the company. It was the best decision I ever made.”She ended up getting promoted to CEO 18 months later but she says she wouldn’t have regretted the decision even if that hadn’t happened. “You really learn that….you have to have a passion for the company – a deep love affair for the work you do or it doesn’t matter what will happen.”

For the first five years of her tenure as CEO, Avon saw, in Jung’s words, “5 years of major double digit earnings.” And then, in 2005, “they hit the wall” and Jung was faced with a potential crisis of confidence. “We had missed earnings guidance twice – the pressure was on. Ram Charan came into my office late one Friday night…and said, ‘Look, they love you. Everyone wants you to win but if you can’t fire yourself [on Friday]…and come back in on Monday morning as if [you were just] put in the job to do a turnaround and do all the objective things that somebody with fresh eyes can…If you can’t do that, this is going to be a tough haul.”

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Voice of Experience: Nina Simosko, Head of the Global Ecosystem & Partner Group, SAP

Nina_Simosko___Web_Photo_1_.jpgby Pamela Weinsaft (New York City)

“Whether you’re studying an instrument, exercising or tackling a business issue head-on, be sure to understand that there are real choices in how we go about accomplishing whatever it is we are doing. There’s an expression that comes to mind: ‘There is never enough time to do something correct the first time, but there is always time to do it over again. Be sure to assess the needs of each situation and decide what is most important before taking your first steps.'”

So writes Nina Simosko on her eponymous blog ninasimosko.com. Ms. Simosko is Head of the Global Ecosystem & Partner Group at software leader SAP. She keeps a schedule that would lend itself readily to proclamations of being too busy to care about the details of how things happen; her global role requires her attention for more than the standard 9 to 5 day. “I don’t have the luxury of working in a time zone…to me, it is just one continuum. I am on the phone with the Europeans at 4 in the morning (in the car on the way to the gym for my morning workout) and the folks in Asia Pacific at 11 at night. I work whatever hours are required for me to do my job.”

Yet she manages to attend to the details of both her work and her personal life. Simosko cites her strong supportive relationships with husband and friends among her proudest personal achievements. “My career puts a large demand on my time. And I love the fact that people get it. It would be horrible to be in a relationship with someone who didn’t get the stress and the time a career like this takes.” Read more

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Voice of Experience: Aileen Blake, Executive Vice President and Corporate Controller, Northern Trust

Blake_Aileen_2004_1_.jpgby Liz O’Donnell (Boston)

“A couple of jobs I took along the way weren’t jobs I had my sight set on,” says Aileen Blake, Executive Vice President and Corporate Controller for Northern Trust, “but someone I trusted said they would be good opportunities. At the end of the day, those opportunities opened doors for me.”

For the most part, Blake has followed a direct and proven path. She studied accounting and business in college, took the CPA exam, and became a public accountant for PricewaterhouseCoopers. From there she held several jobs at major consumer packaged goods companies including Quaker Oats and Pepsi, did a stint overseas, and got an MBA from Kellogg School of Management.

Despite this classic pedigree, Blake tells her junior staff to always keep their considerations broad. “Think about the kinds of experiences you want to get and the kinds of tools you want to add to the tool kit,” she says. She believes that even challenging experiences can support a career trajectory.

“When I went to work in the UK, I was only six years out of college,” she says. “I was thrown into a challenging situation. There were cultural things that I didn’t get.”

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Voice of Experience: Anne Fergusson, Director, PricewaterhouseCoopers Advisory Business / Head of PwC Panel Network

by Elizabeth Harrin (London)

“I’ve had a back to front life,” says Anne Fergusson, a Director in PricewaterhouseCoopers Advisory Business and Head of the PwC Panel Network. She hands me a cup of tea. “Life is full of surprises.”

Anne talks as if she is surprised at the way her career has turned out, but listening to her it is clear that she made good choices, and has actively managed her route to the top at PwC.

She started salaried work at the age of 40, when she separated from her first husband. “I made a decision to earn my own living,” she says. It was a decision taken by necessity: living in the west of Scotland, outside Glasgow, she had three children to support. She had qualified as a chartered accountant when she was younger and took a full-time lectureship at the University of Strathclyde teaching financial and management accounting and tax practice.

She met and married her second husband, who was studying at the time. He read her professional journals, which she admits to ignoring, and pointed out a job he thought she should go for. “I didn’t think I had anywhere else to go, and I enjoyed academia,” she says. However, she rang the Director of Education at the Institute of Chartered Accountants of Scotland and he invited her to an interview.

“I ended up teaching to demanding audiences and made some great friends,” Anne says. Her work with the Institute saw her working in London, Edinburgh, Glasgow, Aberdeen, Russia, Poland and Romania. “I was responsible for my own material, the hours were long and family life was very restricted.”

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